


style points

by angularmomentum



Series: #dirtbags [4]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic), Hockey RPF
Genre: Competitive sex, M/M, Multi, Threesomes, egregious mentions of jock-sweat, glass closets, ping-pong as foreplay, sidney crosby's medal fetish, taking bettman's name in vain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 01:30:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10753929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angularmomentum/pseuds/angularmomentum
Summary: Canada is going to win. Claude is going to do his job for Sid because Sid is the captain. Sid is going to go jerk off.Or: it's not weird if nobody makes it weird.





	style points

**Author's Note:**

> This instalment of my seminal (heh) masterwork brought to you by "oops i did it again" by britney spears and also Finals! It Tastes Like Fear!
> 
> I know Giroux has never played in the Olympics and this is not how the Olympics works, but also, Hockey Is Fake, wake up sheeple.

-

Toronto

-

Sidney doesn’t like to admit it, but he really likes the World Cup.

Sure, it’s kind of a pointless exercise, but at least it’s a fun one. Also Canada is going to win, which is the platonic ideal of all Sid’s fantasies. Sometimes the romantic ideal too, but there’s a reason he’s never told anyone what he jerks off to because it’s embarrassing how frequently his thoughts turn to medals. Nobody has to know.

Anyway Sidney kind of hates Toronto, but not when it’s like this, because everyone is here and he’s not the only one being followed by photographers.

“I’m just here to play hockey,” he says, into a forest of microphones at one of the press things.

In the background, Kent Parson gives him the finger.

Sidney does not give him the satisfaction of a reaction, and later he sees a photo of himself looking constipated on Parson’s Instagram with the hashtags #concealdontfeel. Sid resolves to check him at least once.

All in all, he’s kind of looking forward to it. It would be better if he weren’t banned from certain extracurriculars, but that’s always a bad idea anyway so Parson has probably done him a favour.

It doesn’t make it any less infuriating to see Giroux, the ginger traitor, cosying up to the American team, arm slung low around Parson’s waist and Parson leaning back into Claude’s shoulder with that irritating grin and his hair sticking up.

It definitely doesn’t stir confusing feelings in Sid’s nethers that are always a complex mass of competitiveness and raging lust married to the scent of sweaty hats and warmed gold.

Canada is going to win. Claude is going to do his job for Sid because Sid is the captain. Sid is going to go jerk off.

-

_Drinks?_

Sidney stares at his phone. It’s not like he never texts Claude, it’s just that they don’t text _casually._

True, when Sidney first got banned (and he would really like to appeal to a ref about it, thank you, except for how the only ref available is Claude and he’s not remotely helpful) they exchanged veiled mockery over iMessage for a while before it petered out, but since then Claude and his matching ginger nesting-doll dogs have featured heavily on Parson’s Instagram and Sid has been the recipient of a couple awards and radio silence.

Sidney would also like to state for the record that Parson’s pubes are definitely red, or at least a distinctly coppery colour, and that Sidney is being unfairly penalised. Sidney should also stop thinking about it. _Why?_

Claude sends him that emoji that’s just a face sticking out its tongue with one eye closed.

His phone buzzes a second later. _This is Claude, Parse had my phone._

That is a mental image Sidney just does not need. _Maybe I’m busy._

_When are you ever too busy to fuck?_

Sidney stares at his phone. The answer to that question is “frequently” and sometimes “depressingly often,” but Claude apparently has been getting off on the regular, so Sid is not about to make a fool of himself. _Maybe I don’t want to._

 _Parse is telling the Tavares story again,_ Claude says. _Come make him stop._

Sid should probably say no to that, but realistically, he isn’t going to.

-

"I swear to God it was like being pounded by Hercules himself!” Kent is saying, when Claude opens the hotel room’s door. "You don't understand, I saw the inside of my own soul, it was transcendent.”

Claude rolls his eyes at Sidney, and it’s almost exactly like the All-Star, except for how Sid has been thinking about this off and on for a whole season, and Parson and Claude are both subtly different. Claude’s cut all his stupid curly hair off, for one, which makes him look like he might have cheekbones under his orange face carpet, and Parson’s freckles are standing out stark and light brown across his upturned nose and hollow cheeks. His eyes look sort of murky green today. Sid thinks last time they were blueish.

"He doesn't believe me,” Parse says, pointing at Claude. “I tried to tell him, but I couldn't even describe it. It was like Prometheus bringing fire to the mortals and by fire I mean--"

“You’ve been telling this one since 2009,” Claude points out, “we’ve heard it.”

“Sidney doesn’t know all the details,” Parse says, archly, laying back on the bed. He’s already shirtless. “Sidney is repressed and Catholic and I have spared him, out of respect.”

“Why are you even allowed in our hotel?” Sid asks, because he can’t manage to let this go without at least a token attempt at offence. “I could kick you out, I’m the Captain.”

Claude genuflects sarcastically.

Sid wants to nail them both to the wall, kind of. That sort of biblical imagery is unhelpful to his guilt complex, though, so he banishes it. “Does this mean I’m not banned anymore?”

“Who said that?” Parse says, indignant, propping himself on his elbows. “Claude, take off my pants, I want Sidney to see what he’s missing.”

“I’ve seen it. I’m leaving,” Sid threatens.

“No you’re not.” Claude, laconic as always, does what he’s told with what Sid will never admit looks like reasonable grace, getting down on his knees and unlacing Parse’s shoes with deft fingers before slipping them off. Of course, he ruins it by saying “so you don’t wanna replace JT in the top spot then?”

“I swear to God it happened,” Parse says to the ceiling. “You’d think he’d just give you a sad handy in the showers, but I fucking promise you, he does two-hundred-pound thrusts for fun, It was like—“

Claude yanks Parse’s pants off. “Look, Sid has a boner just thinking about being number one.”

“I do _not_ ,” Sid lies.

Parse smirks at him. Claude chuckles audibly, and even his laugh sounds, somehow, incredibly French. “Hurry up, then.”

“If this ends like the All-Star—“

Sid ends up by the side of the bed staring down at Parson, who is post-season lean and for all his bluster, staring seriously up at Sid, all his laughter gone in an instant. “I’m over it,” he says quietly. “There’s always bleach.”

Sid sets his fingers on Kent’s lips. “They’re red,” Sid says, just for the record.

“Tabarnak, get on with it,” Claude gripes, climbing into the bed on the other side. “Some of us have places to be.”

Sid rethinks his life choices briefly, then decides to hell with it, possibly in a literal sense, but it feels far too good to have familiar hands on his skin, and to be allowed to make a solid bid for gold, despite all his protestations.

He almost asks “who’s winning now?” when he’s pulled out and Kent has made a soft keening sound under him, face pressed into Claude’s sweaty chest, but Sid is self-aware enough not to ask for mockery.

-

Pittsburgh

-

Nobody has to ask why Parson’s never come out. It’s just one of those known things, like Protect Your Goalie, and Never Touch Sid’s Jock.

Sure, maybe it’s obvious enough to everyone that knows him that Parson lives in a glass closet so filigree-thin that a stiff breeze would shatter it, but they also know that just because it’s obvious doesn’t mean he actually wants it broken.

Sid can only explain it in team metaphors, because Sid only barely went to high school, but the best explanation is just that you don’t single out one guy to take the heat when a team loses, and just as much, one guy doesn’t step up to take a team’s win.

Sid is also pretty familiar with Jack Zimmermann, because you don’t live with Mario Lemieux for longer than you’re proud of without becoming acquainted with Bob and Jack, too. It’s maybe one of those things Sid has avoided poking at, because when Kent first showed up in the NHL he was kind of terrifying: driven to a fault and close-mouthed with it. It took probably two or three encounters before Kent said a word to him, and the first time it was just “good shot” when the Aces swept the Penguins out of the playoffs in four fucking games.

Sid remembered that rookie feeling all too well, and as such, he’d left it well enough alone and gone to seethe quietly into a beer like a normal person.

Maybe if he hadn’t hated Claude so much they’d never have started getting to know each other, because Sidney is nothing if not a dog with a bone when it comes to loathing.

“Why you’re hate this guy so much?” Geno asked him once, after the Flyers had been routed on their home ice and Sid had quietly allowed himself to crow about it over dinner after. “You so much better than him anyway.”

Sidney, never immune to flattery, had struggled to explain in a way that wasn’t just a stream of nonsense like “his stupid orange hair infuriates me, and he makes that weird cooing noise in his stupid French accent and it makes me want to murder him and also he keeps tripping me and I want to lay on top of him until he stops struggling because I’m bigger than him.”

Sid has always been well aware that his hatred for Claude makes him sound a little obsessed.

Sid has also always been slightly in denial about why Claude’s smirky toothless mouth is one Sidney would very much like to bite, objectively.

“Oh, you’re want to fuck him?” Geno had said, nodding as though suddenly the world made sense. “Make sense now.”

“What?”

“I straight,” Geno had said patiently, “I not blind.”

“You’re straight?” Somehow the thought had not quite occurred to Sidney, who took a moment to be disappointed.

“I’m ass man,” Geno allowed, graciously. “Anyway, maybe you fuck him, then you not hate him so much.”

“I didn’t say you were right.”

Geno had grinned a huge grin at him and stolen his last bread roll. Sidney had considered the thought of fucking Claude very briefly, turned what was undoubtedly an awful colour, and decided never to bring it up again.

Anyway the first time it happened it was because of Parson. It was probably inevitable, but Sid doesn’t like dealing in hypotheticals. It gives him a headache.

-

Sochi

-

Kent, privately, thinks that he really shouldn’t be here. There’s a certain degree of confidence required to be in the NHL that comes as a prerequisite but the Olympics is a different story. Sure, Kent’s name is on the Stanley Cup now, but that’s one thing. It’s another to play for America, to get slapped with an A and have to pretend to wear it proudly while the inside of his brain does a shimmy like an overexcited labrador waiting to go outside.

Anyway, Kent’s freaking out a little, is the point, and the Olympic Village is tiny and full and his skin feels a little too tight.

His roommate is also a total shithead who Kent refuses to call by name, so it’s not like he can just whip out a pack of cards and go “hey, blackjack?” to kill some time. He’d rather bathe in radioactive waste.

Instead, Kent ends up wandering towards where the Canadians are, despite knowing there’s no way he’ll run into — well, into Jack.

It’s still occasionally strange to realise that he’s never going to run into Jack on the road, and he’s never going to room with him again, or look over to find him at the centre of the line.

It makes Kent restless and it makes Kent maudlin, two things an alternate captain should not be at the Olympics.

It’s not like the Americans are unwelcoming, exactly, it’s just that Kent spent so long in Quebec that he kind of misses their weird accents and the prevalence of smuggled maple syrup in their personal bags.

Also, they’re always monopolising the ping-pong table.

“Best of seven!” Crosby is hissing, just as Kent rounds the corner and leans unobtrusively just inside the doorway.

Crosby’s opponent, a widely-grinning Fleury, gives him the finger, but crouches down to serve anyway, his stupid little soul patch stretched out into a weird shape by his smile. “Then best of nine, Croz?”

“Fuck you,” Crosby says, with what Kent considers to be needless yet hilarious aggression.

“Who’s playing the winner?” Kent asks, pitching his voice to carry. Nothing lifts the blues like a contest.

There’s a moment of silence as the Canadians notice him. Kent makes eye contact with Giroux first, because he’s the first to laugh. “Look, mini-Crosby’s been summoned by the bullshit,” he says in French to Fleury.

Crosby goes an intriguing pink, but Kent loves a challenge almost as much as he loves maple syrup. “Call me mini again, you ginger asshole.”

Giroux’s smirk turns considering. “You wanna go?”

“Kinda,” Kent says, matter of fact. “Depends if he goes to best of eleven.”

“Fuck you all,” Crosby snaps. “Serve the ball, Flower.”

Fleury aces him. Kent slow claps it out, aware he’s being an asshole and not caring too much, just relieved to be out of his own head for a little while. He doesn’t notice Giroux sidling up to him until he’s almost next to him, leaning against the grey wall while Crosby wins a point to a chorus of Canadian booing.

“What are you doing here?” Giroux asks, accent thick and ginger hair thicker, giving him an inch or two on Kent. “Got bored listening to your friends jerk it?”

“I wish,” Kent says, “that would at least be funny.”

“I guess,” Giroux allows. "Wanna play next?"

Kent looks him up and down. He’s— well, he’s a hockey player. He’s built like one, even if he does have chicken legs sticking out the bottom of his atrocious jorts, and his grip is firm.

Yes, Kent wants to play. Kent always wants to play. That’s the problem. “Best of three, or sudden death?”

Kent has every intention of playing ping-pong, at least to start with, but Giroux keeps heckling Crosby, and he keeps brushing his fingers seemingly accidentally across the back of Kent’s knuckles and Kent keeps having absurd and vivid fantasies about getting down on his knees and letting the world fade out for a while with Giroux’s hands in his hair.

Then Crosby throws a ping pong paddle at Giroux’s head, which kind of seals the deal by default.

“Come over here and tell me I should get lower!” Crosby hisses, while Fleury cackles helplessly across the table.

“You wanna get out of here?” Kent asks, aiming for quiet, as Claude recovers from having to duck. It’s probably just his luck that he says it just as the room goes conveniently silent.

Giroux eyes him, then nudges the ping-pong paddle toward the table with the tip of a flip-flop. “Yeah.”

Fleury whistles so loudly Kent thinks he might never be the same. “See if you can take him out for the first game, G,” he says, in French, “fair and square though! Don’t let Canada down!”  
Crosby goes puce. Kent waves at him. “Okay, bye, have fun doing best of fifteen.” Then, because he might as well, he grabs Claude by the wrist and hauls him into the hall.

As soon as they clear the door Kent cracks up. He can’t help it. He’s just had a brilliant idea.

Giroux frowns, pale orange eyebrows meeting above his long nose. “What, were you kidding?”

Kent manages to get a breath in by sheer force of will. “We,” he says, “are going to sexile my roommate.”

“Who are you—“

“Doesn’t matter,” Kent gasps, struck by his own genius. “He’ll hate it.”

“You’re cracked,” Giroux says, “sleeping with the enemy and all.”

“Shut up or I won’t blow you.”

“Was that on the table?”

Kent hauls him off towards where the Americans are, already planning his entrance. Giroux, silenced, follows with what Kent thinks is a deeply endearing grin.

Kent will cherish the look on his roomate’s face for the rest of his life when he bursts into the room and says: “Fuck off, or I’m going to nut on your bed while you’re in it.”

Behind him, Giroux wheezes like Kent has just sticked him in the solar plexus. “See you,” he manages, when Kent’s erstwhile room gremlin leaves at the speed of sound. “Nobody likes that guy in America either?”

Now that Kent has him here, he has a moment of consideration. He’d really only gone over to the Canadian complex to get out from under the blanket of guilt he’s been carrying around since he was selected for the roster. It’s not like he planned this, looking up at Claude Giroux and realising that he hasn’t been shot down, and in fact Claude appears to think the whole thing is hilarious.

Kent swallows. “Are you gonna take off your pants or what?”

Claude shrugs, pulling his bottom lip between his crooked teeth. “Was kinda hoping you’d do it.”

The relief that blooms in his chest is entirely disproportionate to the situation, but it’s possible Kent will never really be over that split-second fear that he’s going to get summarily rejected right at the crunch, and it’s just as possible it’s the last thing he’d ever admit bothers him.

It’s a pretty huge relief to take a deep breath, inhale the scent of him and come a little closer. The noise Claude makes when Kent hooks a finger on the waist of his shorts is one Kent is all too happy to take as a go-ahead to take them off him, going to his knees in the process.

“Grab my hair,” Kent tells him, looking up. “Don’t let go.”

“Are you always this bossy?” Giroux does what Kent says anyway, threading his fingers over the crown of Kent’s head.

“Call me Captain if it makes you happy,” Kent answers, and then his mouth is too full for talking.

Claude makes a noise exactly like a wounded moose Kent saw on a wildlife documentary once. It’s just as gratifying as Kent was hoping it would be when Claude tightens his hand and curses.

Kent gets him off right there, standing between the twin beds, before Claude suggests, breathless, that maybe they should move this horizontally, and Kent wholeheartedly agrees, hot all the way to the bone with how much he wants to keep touching him.

They’ve made it to the bed when the door, mercilessly unlocked, swings open.

“Your roommate is bothering Toews,” Crosby gripes, in tones Kent normally associates with someone saying “your dog was shitting on my lawn.” Then, he stops, mouth open. “Oh my god.”

“Not my problem!” Kent yelps, glancing at Claude, who seems completely oblivious to the fact that his dick is out, leaning up against the headboard with Kent’s lube liberally coating his fingers. “The day he becomes my problem is the day I take Bettman’s job! Get out!”

“Don’t say his name!” Crosby and Claude hiss at the same time, then glare at him.

“It’s very creepy when you do that,” Kent says, kind of hating the way his voice comes out.

“Just admit you wanna join in, Croz,” Claude says, waggling his fingertips. “We were busy.”

“I— what?”

Kent is privately of the same opinion, but he has never quite gotten a handle on their hatred for each other. There are plenty of reasons Kent might have to resent Crosby, who is… well… Crosby, but he’s as over the comparisons people are always trying to make as he is over the sight of Crosby’s ass. Which is to say, he can’t help but notice it, but he’s trained himself not to care.

“You mind?” Claude asks, seeming to realise Kent is silently calculating the odds of getting Crosby out of his pants at a solid 75 to 1.

“I hate you,” Crosby says, weakly, still standing in the doorway. “I just— I hate you so much.”

“I know,” Claude says, blithely. “Come hate us in bed, you’ll feel better.”

Crosby closes the door.

Much like Kent’s rookie year, it doesn’t feel real, but it is. It feels even realer when Crosby stares so intently at Giroux that he doesn’t even really seem to notice Kent dragging him the rest of the way into bed and taking off his shirt until he bites one of his collarbones, and then Crosby seems to realise all at once that he’s having sex and immediately blushes over his entire body. Kent does not mind at all, but it would be nice to be paid attention to. “Pay attention or you won’t score,” Kent tells him. “So far G is winning.”

Sidney focuses on him like a laser aimed at James Bond’s crotch. “Winning what?”

“Orgasms,” Claude contributes, pulling him over onto his side for better access to his thighs.

Sid makes an indistinct noise of outrage, but then he looks at Kent, really looks, and Kent is reminded powerfully of faceoffs as Sidney cautiously rests a big hand on Kent’s ribs, thumb brushing his already-sensitive nipple.

Kent would be a liar to say he’d planned any of this. It’s one thing to know you’d rather be inhaling jock-sweat than perfume any day of the week and another thing entirely to act on it with— well, these guys, but if he’s honest with himself, it’s not the worst way he could be blowing off steam. “Good job,” Kent says, holding in the laughter that’s threatening to bubble out of him in an unstoppable stream. “A little lower would be better.”

Claude laughs, almost out of sight behind the breadth of Sid’s shoulders, and does something that makes Sid start to shudder all over, lips parting just enough for Kent to nip at them, and all thoughts of competition honestly fly out of his mind when Crosby sucks in a sharp breath against his teeth.

“You good?” Kent whispers, later, when it looks like Sidney is having a moment like in the movies, where the record is scratching and the frame has frozen, leaving the character suspended on the screen. He looks like he’s glitching, pressed chest to chest with Kent and chest to back with Claude, eyes wide and startled. “Do we need to call an ambulance?”

“Geno was right,” Crosby whispers, “God _damn_ it.”

Kent figures that means he’s fine, and kisses him on the mouth.

All in all, it’s one of the better turnarounds of his career, even if they end up crammed into a bed too small for three fully-grown men, and Kent wakes up later with a mouthful of ginger hair and a bruise in the shape of teeth with one missing on his ass.

“Ugh.” Sidney groans and rolls over, removing his face from Kent’s shoulder, which immediately starts to tingle with returning blood. “This would have been better if we were wearing medals.”

“Asshole,” Claude grumbles, “some of us don’t have any.”

“Borrow one of mine,” Kent offers. “For next time.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sid snaps. “Canada’s going to crush you like bugs, he’ll have one by the end of the week.”

“Freak,” Claude says, admiringly.

Kent listens to them bicker for a minute before he goes back to sleep, blissfully unconcerned.

**Author's Note:**

> somewhere offscreen evgeni malkin is drunk and touching ovechkin's butt


End file.
